In the shadows, a war rages. The war between the small, dwindling light of humanity and the forces of evil that threaten it, fraying at the edges and picking people off. The monsters hide in the darkness and drag their victims away from safety, or victimize and torment them while their prey never even realizes what predators are feeding off of their misery and strife. But a brave few pick up the candle and lift it high, lighting the darkness.

Fighting the monsters of the World of Darkness is never easy, and often it takes more than simple determination and gonadal fortitude. Hunters who manage to stick around learn what does and doesn’t work, and what tools can help put down wayward spirits, bloodthirsty ghuls, and shapeshifting monstrosities. What follows is a list of gear that well prepared Hunters use to leverage their tenacity against the supernatural talents and powers used by the enemy.

Standard ToolkitSalt

"Salt is the master of your food. God sent down four blessings from the sky – fire, water, iron and salt" -- the prophet Muhammad

An incredibly common item in the modern age, and one of the easiest items to procure. No Hunter should ever be without salt. Salt is essential for life, and throughout history has been impossible to make. The only way for ancient cultures to get salt was either to mine it or extract it from sea water. Due to its necessity and the way that it naturally appears white and pristine, salt has long been a symbol of purity, and is used in all manner of religious ceremonies from Passover to Hindu housewarming. Salt’s purity has also lead to it being used in a number of banishing rituals from all over the world.

SystemsWhen used in abjuration, salt gives a +1 die bonus to the rolls. This comes in the form of

sprinkling it around and throwing pinches on the afflicted. When used to ward an area in the form of salt circles, no ephemeral entity of less than

Rank 2 can pass through an unbroken circle of salt. Anything Rank 2 or higher must spend a point of Willpower and succeed on a Power + Resistance roll to pass through the circle, and inside of it any of their rolls suffer a -2 penalty until they leave.

For more powerful entities like witches or faeries, salt can put them at a disadvantage, but little more than that. It may hinder certain rituals and abilities, but rarely inconveniences them significantly.

As a weapon, Salt itself isn’t all that effective. It doesn’t have oomph or deal additional damage, the way that fire or Cold Iron might. Weapons soaked in salt water are able to harm spirits and demons and make using their powers difficult, but only when manifested. Likewise, rocksalt used as buckshot can force a low ranking ephemeral entity to discorporate for a turn, but it doesn’t prevent them from Manifesting again. On anything corporeal, rocksalt is highly

ineffective, though it does sting like a bitch. Rock salt may be considered a universal Bane of lesser ephemeral entities (Rank 1 or Rank 0).

Salt has such a low cost that nearly any character can get their hands on it. Table salt isn’t very useful, and when used to season food it loses it’s purity--so while some Hunters might salt their beer, this is simple superstition, and the damage salted French fries do to a Hunter’s arteries is more substantial than what they might do to a demon or a ghost--but many a desperate Hunter has turned to the kitchen cabinets and the Morton’s when out of weapons. Kosher salt works better than the kind with iodine (“Kosher”, or koshering, salt is simply salt used in the koshering process, salting and removing surface blood from meat. All salt is by it’s nature kosher). There’s no mechanics associated with using lower quality ritual substances, but most Hunters swear by purity, and salt is cheap enough that they can splurge.

IronGold is for the mistress — silver for the maid —Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.

"Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall,"But Iron — Cold Iron — is master of them all."

--Rudyard Kipling, Cold Iron

Another common substance with traditionally spiritual value, Iron has long been associated with blood. Human blood smells of iron or copper when spilled, and iron has long been associated with weapons.

Iron is powerful for it’s stability and strength, and throughout history has been one of the most important minerals to human society, both for construction and warfare. Due to it’s nature in warfare and weaponry, the “Iron Age” has been used by Greek scholars like Plutarch to refer to an age when men battle against each other as amoral. Whichever connotations hold truer, Iron is another piece of esoteric armoury that shouldn’t be ignored.

The epithet “Cold Iron”, often considered a bane to fairies and malevolent spirits alike, is also a poetic term for iron weaponry. The term “cold steel” has also been used, though Hunters consider the closer something is to freshly mined iron, the better. Of course, freshly mined iron ore is filled with impurities, and a poor weapon. While there’s contention about what Cold Iron means, most in the business agree that iron treated by heat and smelted is no longer Cold. Working iron without smelting it is a difficult prospect at best, and requires quite a bit of muscle. Raw iron is brittle, and prone to breaking. For many Hunters it’s worth the trouble.

SystemsMuch like salt, iron is difficult for ghosts and demons and many entities to cross. It takes

preparation to create an iron circle, and the protection it gives is greater than that of a simple salt circle. Specially prepared for defense against ephemeral intrusion, nothing below Rank 3 can pass through, and anything that does try to pass must first succeed on a Power + Resistance roll at -5, sacrificing a dot of Willpower to make the roll. Inside the circle, they take -5 to any actions. Unfortunately most things capable of crossing such a threshold can likely tear a Hunter apart.

Cold Iron circles on the other hand, with all the difficulty in creating them, will keep out nearly anything ephemeral, as well as the Fair Folk. Within the confines of a Cold Iron circle, nothing magical can get in or out. Spells can’t cross, Numina hits it like a pebble on the wall, and the dread powers of demons and Faeries wash over it. Of course, a circle does a hunter little good. It makes for a nice bunker, but bunkers are only good for hiding.

Cold Iron weaponry on the other hand is very useful. Fairy beings and certain demons take aggravated damage from any weapons made from hand-forged iron. Even simple iron buckshot can disrupt an ephemeral being the same as salt. Creatures hit in this way take lethal damage.

Fire“Fire burns.” --Harry Dresden

Fire isn’t exactly something that a Hunter can keep in the glove compartment, but it also isn’t difficult to make either. A bottle of whiskey and a handkerchief. A rag on a stick. A can of hairspray. Put a lighter to the right stuff and you’ve got a decent weapon against all manner of things, both supernatural and natural alike. Fire has always had properties of purification and cleansing. Fire is the first real magic that humanity experienced, and has long symbolized their enlightenment as animals. It protects against the monsters in the darkness, it warms against the cold, and it heats up food, destroying germs and making it safe to eat. Forest fires burn away dead wood and dry brush, making way for new growth.

It doesn’t always do aggravated damage, but you can rarely go wrong when it comes to setting something on fire. Many Hunters often end up moonlighting as arsonists, setting off fires to torch remains and set the undead alight. There are very few problems that can’t be solved with controlled immolation. Unfortunately, fire is also difficult to control, and can often be unpredictable, making it dangerous to use as a weapon. A zombie might go up like a bonfire, but until it actually stops moving, it’s even more dangerous, and liable to set a would-be Hunter on fire as it is to drop into a pile of ashes.

SystemsFire doesn’t really need any special systems for most problems. It simply is. For certain

creatures, though, like vampires, the reanimated, and other instances of the living dead, fire deals Aggravated damage, torching dead flesh and burning the body. For ephemeral beings, fire is hit and miss, but for the most part it’s as effective against them as it is against the living, and often even more so due to their non-corporeal nature. If you can hit a spirit or ghost with fire, it takes an additional point of damage, provided you aren’t simply fueling it’s essence.

More useful is the way that fire can be used to burn bones and human remains, or destroy the Anchor of a ghost, sending it to the Underworld. Fire is a way to be certain that the Anchor is completely destroyed, and many Hunters add a bit of salt to the blaze as well.

Hunter tradition is that when a member of a cell dies, they be put to rest on a funeral pyre. The deceased is wrapped up in a sheet--often taken from a motel room--salted, and set on fire in the woods, away from civilization. Some cells have more superstitions around it, such as standing vigil for a few nights to see if the corpse rises as a bloodsucker, but most agree that burning is a good way to go. No remains.

Holy Water"How Do You Make Holy Water? Boil The Hell Out Of It.”

-- Fortune cookie

One of the more contentious objects in the arsenal of a Hunter, holy water is simply any water that has been religiously blessed. Many religions have spiritually blessed water, but the most prominent is that of the Catholic faith, and even Hunters not of a Catholic persuasion will swear by holy water blessed by a Catholic priest, or using a Catholic ritual. Other Hunters point

out that water is rarely that useful on it’s own, blessed or not. Still, a Hunter who can skim from the baptismal pool or bless a bottle of Dasani might be well served by doing so.

SystemsWater that’s been blessed properly, which might require an actual ordained priest--or

former priest, as is a common trope--or simply a Hunter who knows the right ritual, is a powerful tool in exorcisms. Whatever method the Storyteller decides is necessary to create holy water, to infuse it with the proper power requires a character to spend a point of Willpower when blessing it. It might also require such tools as a rosary or prayer.

Holy water gives the Rote quality to any Abjuration attempts when used with the ritual, and it can be used to harm those dark spirits and demons who feed on the vices of humanity. It does Aggravated damage, but splashing water on an enemy isn’t the most effective thing in combat. Splashed holy water has a damage rating of 0A when used against creatures it harms, and has a range increment of only about one yard.

Magic Circles"Key of Solomon? It's the real deal, all right.[...] You get a demon in one, they're trapped.

They're powerless. Like a satanic roach motel."-- Bobby Singer, Supernatural